


Understanding

by bonnie_wee_swordsman



Series: Various Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Angst, Claire and Brianna, Fluff, Frasers Ridge, Parental Feels, maternal!feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonnie_wee_swordsman/pseuds/bonnie_wee_swordsman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after arriving back at Fraser's Ridge in Written in my Own Heart's Blood (MOBY) Brianna has a moment of connection with her mother. </p><p>From the tumblr prompt: "I've got a Claire prompt for you - how about Brianna and Claire talking on the ridge, with Brianna finally understanding what Claire's life was like, and why it appeared that Claire was distant, back in the future. Maybe Jamie overhearing?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiskebob](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiskebob/gifts).



My granddaughter’s voice— _God, what a delight it was to hear it_ —shrilled sweetly up the path behind me..

“Comm-onnnn, Grandda!!!“ she squealed. “Chase-sa-me! Chase-sa-me!”

“Non, Grand-père’s far too OLD! ” I heard Germain bait, making Fannie and Mandy giggle. “ _Un gros vieillard!_ ”

“Canna catch us!” Jem called exuberantly, making my heart twinge painfully, and eliciting an exhale of deep relief. Despite the terrible things our sweet boy had faced since leaving the Ridge, he was going to be alright, immersing himself wholeheartedly in the fun of the moment.

“Oh, I CANNA, aye?” came Jamie’s theatrical bellow, followed by the devious laugh of a fairy-tale troll about to come a-gobbling. Thundering (and quick) footfalls sounded in the pebbly sand, producing chorusing squeals of panicked glee, both male and female, I noted with a grin as I continued on my way.

Jamie and I had led the children on an expedition to the creek in hopes of giving poor, gracious Amy McCallum an hour’s peace and quiet in her own home. The small cabin that had belonged once to Bree and Roger was bursting to the brim, now that the self-same MacKenzies had returned to the Ridge.  As glad— _overjoyed_!— as I was to have my precious ones back on this side of the stones, the relief of escaping from the overcrowded quarters was palpable.  

I had helped Mandy make a daisy crown, had dozed in the sun for a time, and had gathered herbs while Jamie whittled and played raucous games with the children, all of us luxuriating in the freedom of a warm, spring Sunday afternoon. After several hours, though, I had kissed Jamie and left the revelers behind, eager to get the contents of my scavenging basket bundled and set to dry before darkness fell.

I rounded a bend in the wooded path, and suddenly stopped short. I held my breath and strained to listen again for the sound. Yes: someone crying, close at hand.  

She was sitting hunched on a low, flat rock no more than ten yards off the path. Her back was toward me, but I could see that she held her head in her hands. I took a step forward and uttered a quiet, “Bree?”

I hadn’t meant to startle her, but her head snapped up at once. Her eyes were red and swollen…she’d been crying for some time, then. To my surprise, she didn’t show any kind of embarrassment at being caught in this private moment of vulnerability. In fact, the most remarkable look of agonized recognition lit up her face.

“MAMA,” she choked out with startling violence, rising to her feet. “Mama, I’m…I’m so.. _sorry_!”

I crossed the space between us in a flash, meaning to gather her into my arms, but she gathered up _me_ first, crushing me against her chest and cradling my head like a child’s, dissolving into heartbreaking, convulsive sobs.

Shocked as I was by this, I held her back just as tight, rocking her as best I might and murmuring softly. “It’s alright, sweetheart…Hush…hush, it’s alright… I’m here.”

 _God_ , little wonder if she needed a moment to let down her guard. Last night, as she and Roger had sat by the fire, recounting to Jamie and me all the events of their time back in the twentieth century, Bree had maintained a façade of calm and composure that would have rivaled even Jamie’s stalwart masks. But such terrors could not be borne by rational control alone indefinitely. I let her cry for as long as she would, then, letting her be my baby once more, safe and protected.

When the sobs subsided into hiccupping gasps, I guided her back to the rock and sat down beside her, and offered her a handkerchief. She took it, but that stricken look on her face remained.

“Bree…sweetheart…?” I began, tentatively.

Her features contorted further as she gasped out, “I’m so sorry, Mama… _So…sorry._ ”

Bewildered, I ran a hand gently down the side of her face, trying to get her to meet my eye. “What _ever_ do you have to apologize for, Bree? You can’t possibly have done anything to me.”

“N-no, not really—it’s just—” She inhaled deeply with a grating sound like tearing paper. Then, tears and panicked words began to tumble out of her. “Just that I understand now—I think—I _think_ I do, anyway—but—Mama, when it— _it all became—_ its all I could think about when— _damn_ it, I UNDERSTAND,” she said, ending in a kind of frantic wail, the edge of mounting panic clear.

“Brianna,” I said, in a firm doctor-to-patient tone that made her look up at once, eyes wide. “Take a moment. Breathe. Then, tell me.”

She nodded once and turned away from me, bending at the waist to lay her arms and forehead on her knees. I could hear her marshaling her breathing back into rhythm, bringing her ragged voice back from the brink of hysteria.

I kept my hand on her back. _I’m not leaving you, Baby. I’m here._

A long time later, she rose to her elbows resting her chin on her clasped hands, beginning at once. “When we thought Jemmy had been—” She cleared her throat, and resumed, low and hoarsely, but controlled. “When we thought he’d been taken through…we knew without even having to discuss it that it was Roger that had to go after him.”  

 _Had to go after Jemmy through the stones._ My stomach lurched, hearing remembered screams in black oblivion.

Bree went on, gritting her teeth. “We made the arrangements at once, and I put on a brave face for us both, talking about when he’d come back. When they would both come back…”

She extricated a hand long enough to wipe a fresh tear from her eye, releasing a deep, stertorous gasp. “But in my heart, Mama… _God_ , in that moment on the hill, I was saying goodbye to him for good. Sending him through to his death.”

“Oh, my love,” I murmured, my heart breaking for her pain.

“All I wanted was to snatch him back, beg him not to go…” she took a deep breath, shaking her head as if to dismiss the memory, “but of course— _Jemmy_ —he had to go, R-Roger—I knew that….but all I could think about after he’d gone—the thing that had me on my hands and knees in front of those _fucking_ stones, breaking apart… was _you_.”

“Me?” I breathed, completely taken

She met my eye earnestly. “In that place—those stones—God, everything came to me like a lightning bolt. In that moment…I was you.”

“I don’t under—”

She gulped slightly and took my hand. “All I could think about were those memories from my childhood, my young adulthood. Looking up over breakfast and seeing that coldness toward Daddy in your eye; or how you got that far-off look for long periods of time when you thought no one was looking; those months when you’d stay late at the hospital when you didn’t strictly need to—”

She suddenly blinked and started, realizing the effect her words were having on me. “Oh, _no_ , Mama! No, I don’t mean to say it was like that all the time; not even _most_ of the time. “ She paused for a moment to squeeze my hand tightly and kiss my cheek, though it did little to lessen the excruciating lump in my throat.

“Just…from time to time,” she went on, “I’d…catch glimpses of you in those moments, you know? And I just couldn’t understand what it was…why you were separated from us…from me.” She squeezed my hand even tighter, this time in emphasis. “I wanted so badly to have _all of you,_ all the time; and when I couldn’t, without even understanding why—” she dropped her eyes, “I—resented you for it.”

Now it was I who squeezed reassuringly, though my voice was hoarse. “You had every right to. I’m so ashamed, Bree. I should have been better able to handle my—”

She cut me off, eyes wide. “But that’s just it, Mama—I _do_ understand now. _I understand why!_ ”

My voice was barely audible. “You do?”

“ _You had to live without your heart.”_ Tears were flowing once again, thick and fast, down her cheeks. “You had to tear it out yourself and leave it behind, knowing that there was no other way…for the sake of your child…and because you knew that’s what he wanted.”

I couldn’t speak. My careful shell covering those memories and years, had been cracked open. I wept, the emptiness dragging me down.

She reached out and touched my cheek, eyes boring into me in a kind of a questing, tormented wonderment. “You had to carry on though empty… _aching_ , and grieving for him… knowing you could never see or touch him again. Had to pretend, and put on a brave face, and find ways to be happy without going mad….but sometimes the control would slip and you’d just— _FEEL_ it. The terror and the agony of having him gone….” She choked suddenly in a fresh wave of anguish, her words painful and grating against a ragged throat. “And you had to bear it _alone._ You couldn’t ever really explain to anyone….about Da…why he was gone….You had no one who completely understood you. Not anymore…and you wouldn’t ever again.” She was breaking down. “You felt so _fucking_ desolate and…so alone…and sometimes you needed to…to _not be strong_.”

“Oh…God… _Bree_ …”

We dissolved into sobs, holding one other as if to never let go. We, each of us, were both breaking apart and holding one another together by the bonds of memory…of grief…of love…and yes—of _understanding_.

Another pair of arms encircled us both. _Jamie_. Neither of us had heard him approach, but there he was, kneeling on the ground beside us, his presence a warm, solid, unyielding shield. He murmured soft, sweet things in Gaelic, and leaned forward to place a kiss in Bree’s hair.

“But your mother wasna alone, _a leannan,_ ” he said, leaning his head against hers. “She had—”

“MAM-MAM-MAM-MAM-MAM-MAM!!!” Before any of us could move, three-year-old Mandy (daisy crown hanging down over one ear) hurtled into view, apple-cheeked and brandishing a fistfull of plant matter in triumph. “Mammmmm, look whadd-I-found down at the at the—”

She froze a few feet away, and— _good Lord_ , the child could have been plucked right from the silent pictures—broke into the most breathtakingly stricken expression of concern. “Whadds-tha-madder, Mam? You’re _sick_?” Her chin quivered and tears welled up in her eyes. _Dear heart._

“Och, no, _mo chridhe,_ ” said Jamie at once, reaching out an arm to pull his granddaughter close into our little huddle. “Your mam isna one bit sick, never fear; just having a bit of a cry. Ye ken how that is, aye? Sometimes ye get to thinking on sad things, even if they were only in a dream, say, and ye just need to cry. Naught for you to worry over, wee love.”

Mandy stood looking pensive for a moment; then removed herself from Jamie’s embrace and hauled herself into her mother’s lap, throwing her arms around Bree’s neck.

“I’ll stay wi’ ye, Mam,” she said decisively. “Until-dose bad dreams go ‘way, okay?”  

Bree fell to pieces, then, pressing Mandy tight against her, too overcome to speak. She looked over the top of the curly head to Jamie, then at me. She could hear the words clearly, though my lips couldn’t form them.  

No, I wasn’t alone, Bree…

_I had you._


End file.
